A Confession That Contains Its Own Proof
by MrsVincentCrabbe
Summary: My 30 kisses Sheldon/Penny fanfic.
1. Gardenias and a Sprite Can

#11 Gardenia

Sheldon Cooper hated these department parties. They always seemed to end badly. The last one he attended ended in the termination of his work at the university. No, Sheldon Cooper did not like these department parties at all.

He found himself outside the college on a bench, sipping his Sprite and waiting on Leonard and the others to be done with their needy schmuzing. He was an asset to this institution and therefore did not need to kiss up to the new benefactor. He put the small straw between his lips and sucked as he watched Leslie Winkle pull her Victim of the Week into a bush. He could see her practically biting his lip off in what he supposed was a kiss before he stumbled into the brush and (thankfully) out of his sight. He huffed at this display of physiological neediness and once again resigned himself to live forever in the mystery of human interaction.

The straw slurped against the bottom of the empty can and he moved to go throw it away in a trash can before he saw her run from the building. She was wearing a large Gardenia in her bun and a white dress that seemed to glow in the moonlight. His eyebrows pushed together at the sight before she saw him and ran to him.

She didn't say a word, just sat next to him and laid her head on his shoulder and cried.

She cried because Leonard had brought her as arm candy. She thought that maybe they could go somewhere this time around. It wasn't right for him to hurt her again. Sheldon wanted to ask why she would think Leonard would do something like that before she drew in a shuddering breath and sobbed out the whole story.

How she had tried so hard to look beautiful for him.

How he had walked into the party with his eyes on everyone but her.

How she had overheard him and another scientist having a buddy-buddy moment on what a stud Leonard must be for scoring that.

How Leslie Winkle had actually insulted her before running off with another man to make Leonard notice her.

How jealous Leonard had been when Leslie looked over her shoulder to make sure she was watching.

She cried until the entire lapel of his sport coat was soaked with her make-up and tears. She reached over and pulled the matching hankerchief out of his breast pocket but he couldn't bring himself to speak, to protest. She wiped her face, smearing the mascara stains all over and blew her nose before she stuffed it back in his pocket. She sighed and buried her head back into his soaked shoulder. She breathed in the slight scent of his Dial Antibacterial body bar and something that smelled vaguely of paper.

"Thank you, Sheldon," she whispered. She patted his hand and she felt him smile a little. She stood up and told him she was going to the bathroom to reapply her make-up and that she would get his jacket cleaned for him. She smiled once and turned to go but Sheldon yelled for her.

"Penny!" he said, no emotion evident in his voice. She turned to see her Gardenia in his hand. He stood and walked to her.

"It must have fallen out when I was sobbing like a mess all over you. Than-" she started when he reached up and placed it carefully back in her hair. She knew he was putting it back in the exact spot she had worn it all evening. When he stepped back to ensure it was placed just as he liked it, she grabbed his hand and squeezed again. "Thank you." She entered the building and he picked up his Sprite and threw it in the trash.

Sheldon Cooper hated these department parties. They always seemed to end badly. The first one ended in him being canned and the second with Leonard back in a relationship with Leslie Winkle and Penny in tears. No, Sheldon Cooper did not like these department parties at all.


	2. Stereoscopic

# 7 Superstar

"Leonard," Sheldon screamed over the sound from across the hall, "what is this noise?"

"I don't know!" Leonard pushed his hands over his ears, trying to block out the sound."But I think my ears are bleeding!"

"I think it's Penny!" Sheldon shouted at Leonard's hands.

"What?"

"I said, 'I think it's Penny!'"

"What?" Sheldon huffed and threw his hands down.

"Never mind!" Sheldon stomped out into the hall, leaving Leonard to staunch the bleeding on his own. He knocked on the door several times, knowing that she probably couldn't hear him over the pounding sound of her stereo. He tried the handle to find the door open. He swung it open, intent on finding the stereo surround sound that Leonard had set up and ripping the wiring right out of the back.

What he was met with was something he wasn't entirely ready for.

Penny was bouncing around in front of her television with a hair brush in her hand. Her hair fanned around her head like a halo as she sang along to Taylor Swift.

_"I miss screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain/and it's two am and I'm cursing your name..."_ Her blue silk tank top was skimming the hem of her pink panties and her bare feet were tapping gently on the hardwood floor. He tried calling her name but she had her eyes closed as she sung along. Instead, he found the stereo and quickly whipped the dial to zero.

"Hey, what the hell?!" Penny turned on him, angry at the intruder but also slightly embarrassed over being caught like that.

"You had it up way too loud!" Sheldon shouted at her.

"Gee, sorry," she sneered, moving away from him in the hopes of hiding her red cheeks.

"According to our contract, you must not play any stereo equipment over the halfway mark of the dial." He shouted. She turned toward him and channeled all her embarrassment into anger. "It's for your own safety as well as our peace."

"You don't have to yell at me, Sheldon!" she screamed back.

"I don't have a choice. It'll be this way until the trauma to my inner ear is healed."

"I didn't cause trauma to your inner ear! My singing's not that bad!"

"That's what you think."

"Say what?" Sheldon turned to see her arms folded across her chest and one hip stuck out. He knew this was flat out trouble. He had seen that stance once before and it had ended in a call from his mother.

"I suppose one cannot mutter secretively to oneself after inner ear trauma?"

"No, they can't."

Leonard came out of their apartment just in time to see Sheldon physically thrown out the door.

"What the hell?" Sheldon quickly dusted himself off and ran into the apartment.

"If my mother calls anytime in the next five to seven days, I am not at home."


	3. The Movie Case Debacle

#21 violence, pillage/plunder, extortion

It all started when she made all his Marvel Action figures kiss DC Comics heroes. It took him hours to sort them all back to their respective universes, stories, and villains. He plotted furiously.

----

She came home to find her Care Bears had been hidden all over her house. It took her three hours to find them in her refrigerator, cabinets, under bed storage containers, and her closet. The final straw was when she ruined four of them because she turned the shower on before checking the bathtub.

----

She called him in sick at the University one day and he lost his appointment with the particle fission ray. Next opening? Four months later.

----

He disconnected her stereo. They had both forgotten what this fight was about but he felt like this had some kind of symbolic importance.

----

She sent him LOLCATS.

----

He disconnected her from their Wi-Fi.

----

She stole his laptop and rearranged all the files.

----

He erased "America's Next Top Model" from their TiVo.

----

She changed all the discs in their DVD collection to be in the wrong case.

----

"Sheldon," Leonard said as Sheldon tried to fix the Movie Case Debacle, "what is this fight even over?"

"It's a power struggle, Leonard. It's over power and who has it."

"Sheldon, can you just tell her she's won and make up?"

"No, because then I would be ceding power," he intoned, letting Leonard know that that was a stupid question.

"Sheldon, there's something you have to learn about woman. You only have as much power as they give you." His phone rang and he glanced at the text message. "Leslie says I'm late and I have to hurry my ass up if I want anything tonight."

"Yes, well, you have a date with death and Madame Black Widow. Let me know how that goes."

"You let me know how it ends with Ms. Preying Mantis." Sheldon shot him a dirty look but Leonard left before he could attempt to blow up his brain.

----

When Leonard came home at three a.m., Sheldor and sitting on the floor, his laptop blazing in front of him while Queen Penelope was laying on the couch, sounds of war coming from her own laptop. He learned that, since he had left, Sheldon had added her back to the Wi-Fi and they had sacked seven villages and had stolen Wolowitz's tiger as a prank. Apparently they had made up and no one's mother had been called and no power had been ceded from either side.


	4. The Kissy Print Paradigm

# 19 Red

Leonard had been watching an old Doctor Who rerun when Penny stormed their door. She stomped to the kitchen in her little blue shorts and neon green, lacy tank top. She hadn't even stopped to put on shoes, just barefoot and bleary-eyed and desperate for coffee. She quickly kissed the coffee mug that she grabbed and poured the precious hot liquid into it. She opened the fridge without one word to him and grabbed Sheldon's carton of milk. Leonard sat quietly by as she gulped down half the cup before hissing at the scalding taste.

"Better now?" he chuckled. She had to smile through her pain.

"Oh, much," she sighed.

"Sheldon's not going to like you drinking his milk."

"Let's just wait and see," she grinned conspiratorially. Her relationship with Leonard had been mended by a drunken accusation and a morning apology. She'd slammed the door in his face and he brought her breakfast the next morning. She forgave him but told him it was time they were friends, real friends. He agreed. Halo Night that week had been a hell of a lot easier and a lot more fun. She sat on the arm of the couch next to Sheldon's spot and chatted with Leonard about Doctor Who (it took several tries to convince her the name of the show actually was "Doctor Who" and that he wasn't screwing with her) while they waited for Sheldon to emerge from the bathroom. She set the empty coffee cup on the floor in hopes he wouldn't see it.

"Good morning, Leonard!" Leonard muttered a half-hearted 'morning', "Oh, Penny, I'm so glad to see you here!" Both eyebrows had to shoot up at this admission. After setting the kettle to boiling, Sheldon hurried out of the room and back to his room.

"What is that about?" Leonard asked her.

"Beats the hell out of me," she shrugged. He came back with something small and red in his hand.

"I discovered this the other day. I know it's yours." He handed a tiny bright red thong with a pink kiss print on the front to her.

"Oh, you found them! You knew I was looking everywhere! I found the bra but couldn't find these!" she patted him on the chest before running out of the apartment. Sheldon turned to check his boiling water while Leonard had to wonder what in hell just occurred. It took the whistle of the kettle to rouse him from his seat.

"Sheldon, what was that?"

"I found her underwear. I returned them to her."

"Yes, I saw all that." Sheldon carefully poured the water into the cup and started to steep the herbal infusion tea bag. "Where did you find them?"

"Folded in my clothes from when we did laundry on Saturday." Leonard sighed. _Only them_, he thought with a sigh. Sheldon opened the refrigerator and pulled out the milk. He barely got the door shut before he turned to glare at Leonard.

"She drank our milk again, didn't she?"


	5. Interruptions

#12 In a Good Mood

Penny was in high spirits that Friday. Leonard had already left with Leslie for the night and Howard and Raj had gone off to pick up bored, drunk, and lonely single women at a local Bar Mitzvah after party. Sheldon was sitting at his desk, the solitude of the night conducive to the work he had to do. He had to write this paper on his monopole research and get it published before another physicist wrote some hackneyed, untested hypothesis and claimed the idea as his own. This was his life's work. This was important.

And then Penny bowled through the door, skipping in her high heels and wearing a very tight little dress. "Hello, Sheldon!" she singsonged. He sighed, knowing this could only be the beginning of what promised to be a very distracting and pointless conversation.

"You seem to be in a rapturous mood tonight," he said, turning back to his paper with little interest to his neighbor.

"I am! I got a part in a play AND a date with the hot male lead."

"Well, that's all well and lovely for you but I have work to do, Penny. Could you please call one of your 'girlfriends' and have this chat?" He might have said 'please' but his voice was anything but considerate and polite to her.

"That's not what I came over to talk about Sheldon. God, I can't even have a good day with you around, can I?"

"Then I suggest removing yourself from my presence to maintain your annoyingly chipper disposition."

"Kiss my ass, Sheldon." She pulled on his ear lobe as she walked behind him. He shot her a look of death as she grabbed a bottle of water out of his fridge. "Ask me what play I'm in."

"No," he grabbed a fresh pencil and crossed out a sentence. It was far too explanatory and if they couldn't understand the premise, what were they doing reading his paper anyway?

"It's 'The Importance of Being Earnest.' I'm going to be Cecily."

"That's lovely, now get out."

"Sheldon, don't you want to come see my play?"

"Is singing involved?" he asked seriously.

"Not that I know of," she sneered.

"Give me the date."

"Three weeks from tomorrow."

"I'll be there. I assume Leonard et al are invited as well?"

"Of course," she smiled again.

"Well, is that all you wanted?"

"Yes."

"Please leave."

"You got it, Moonpie," she patted him on the back as she made her way back to the door. She turned around to see him grimace at the half-empty water bottle she had left purposefully on his desk.

Opening Night, Hot Male Lead didn't speak to her, Leonard, Howard, and Raj sent her a boutique of daisies, and Sheldon sent her one white rose in the water bottle she had left on his desk.


	6. Letters from Home

#2 Letter; news

Penny gets letters from home all the time. She would usually open them with a little flair and he would see the growing smile on her face as she read through the words. He didn't know if they were from her mother or her father or her sister or anyone. He just knew she received them on a fairly regular basis.

And then she didn't. He knew she didn't because Leonard still stole her mail and she still read her letters at their kitchen island. She had a predictable pattern of emotions based on content. The bills were thrown aside with disgust and a little worry, ads were glanced through with bored curiosity before being lazily dropped to the counter, coupons were marked with a dog-ear to be clipped later, her letters from home where met with an unsuppressed smile.

So when the letters disappeared, he had to ask. "Penny," he said as she lazily dropped another sale ad from the market down, "have you not heard from your home lately?"

"What makes you say that?"

"Leonard steals you mail, which is still a federal offense, even among friends, but I noticed a lack of personal correspondence among your bills and other letters."

"My dad gave me four years," she said distractedly. "Four years to make something of myself in California before I came home and did something sensible. Yeah," she snorted, "like being a waitress in Nebraska is any more sensible than being a waitress in California." He quirked an eyebrow at her cool detachment. He had expected tears.

"So, they have stopped writing?"

"Nope, I've just stopped reading." He noticed the little hitch in her breathing and felt the cold dread in his stomach that she was going to cry. That was the last thing he needed on a Saturday. "It's all, 'Come home, you've had your fun' crap anyway." He pulled a tissue from the box he had set out earlier. He was prepared, at least. She dabbed her eyes quietly, not resolving herself to dramatic hysterics. He thought about telling her to cry like this at her next audition and maybe she would finally get a part. He thought better of that.

Instead, he let her have her moment, awkward as it was for him. "You know, my father never truly wished for me to be a physicist." That's all he had to say. He hadn't meant a thing by it but he could see her building her own romanticized story around it and he let her. He had learned one thing about Penny: she wasn't interested in facts as much as feelings. So, he let her imagine that his father had burned his books or whatever crazy, storybook nonsense she thought up.

And he let her kiss his cheek and pat him as she left. And it was all worth it the next time she sat at their counter and smiled as her eyes skimmed the letters she had hidden away and never read.


	7. No One Cares

#5 "ano sa"; hey, you know...

"Hey, you know what, Sheldon?" Penny said scathingly over her Thai food, "no one cares!" But instead of a heated glare or even blatant dismissal of her opinion, Penny got...nothing. He didn't twitch, he didn't start, he didn't stiffen. He showed no non-verbal markers (whatever the hell that meant...God, no more 'Lie to Me' with the guys) that he had heard her at all. "Sheldon? Did you _hear_ me?"

"Yes, I heard you quite clearly as I do not currently have any conductive or sensorineural hearing deficits to overcome, nor do I have an infection, obstruction, or anatomic defects which would prevent my cochleovestibular nerve from functioning at optimum capacity." He had lost her around the word "sensorineural" and her eyes had glassed at "cochleovestibular".

"Sheldon, no one cares. I don't care about your ears, I don't care about your Thai food, I just don't care."

"I'm aware, Penny." Her mouth dropped open at his obvious lack of emotional investment in this whole discussion. Usually she was good for a glare or, when she was lucky, an all out war, what was with this crappy attitude adjustment of his?

"Then why are you droning on?" she said, exasperated that, just when she thought she had him pegged, he changed the ball game again.

"You asked a question. As a scientist, I am almost programmed to answer it." She could do nothing but shake her head with her mouth hanging open as she walked out the door, done with him for the day.

"Told you he was a robot," was the last thing she heard as she shut the door behind her.

* * *

He knocked on her door three hours later, the clock moving in on midnight.

"Screw you, Sheldon, I'm not answering the door," she shouted as she slunk her way down the hall. She opened her door with a wrench and was rewarded with a surprised Sheldon.

"I will never comprehend why you verbalize one intention but do the opposite." And Penny didn't know why she did that either. It was just something she did. Suck it up, pal.

"What did you want?"

"I wished to apologize for earlier."

"Apologize? For what?"

"For not properly acknowledging you."

"Sheldon, since when do you care if you acknowledged me?"

"Since it has been revealed to me that people generally wish to be treated as they treat others and, when I speak, I wish to be acknowledged. I've made it a new endeavor of mine."

"At midnight?"

"I couldn't sleep." She softened a little, seeing him standing in her door, bleary-eyed and rumpled in his Tuesday pajamas and asking forgiveness.

"Go back to bed, sweetie. I forgive you." He sighed a little, turning on his heel.

"Oh, good, because this was destroying my circadian rhythms," he said as he shut the door.

"And we're right back to jackass," she sighed, but with the hint of a smile on her face as she shut her own door.


	8. Summer Fun

#15 - perfect blue

The sky was a cloudless, perfect blue and Penny was grumbling as she drug the heavy water hose around the corner of the building.

"I don't see why this is necessary, Penny," Sheldon had voiced as she threw the coil of thick green rubber at him, scrambling to check it all. "There is a perfectly acceptable Car wash just around the corner from here."

"Okay, A? I don't have the cash to pay some high schooler to wax my car while he thinks about things other than the Karate Kid."

"I don't get the allus-"

"And B?" Penny soldier onward, "I can wash my own car, my own clothes, and my own self."

"Penny, if you are still feeling insecure about your injury-"

"And I don't need anyone's help." She stomped her way back around the building, spinning the dial on the spigot just a little too forcefully. Hot water rushed out all over the concrete in front of Sheldon as he struggled to wrangle the hose back to being manageable.

"Penny, we're not fighting forest fires!" Penny slipped her flip-flops back on, the combination of the hot water on the scalding concrete burning her heels.

"Just spray the damn car down, Sheldon."

Do you have a bucket, soap, any supplies at all?" Penny cocked her hip to the side and raised an eyebrow at him.

"I don't take criticism from a man wearing Aquaman swim trunks and two tee-shirts in the middle of a California heat wave." Sheldon pursed his lips but directed the water to wet the top of her car. A man walking down the sidewalk beside the apartment's parking lot whistled and blew Penny a kiss. She caught the kiss, slapped it on her ass, and then gave him the finger. She squirted dish soap all over her car.

"Penny!" Sheldon struggled out, staring at her like she had committed an affront on society or physics or gravity.

"What? It says it works on grease!" She grabbed the washcloth and went to work, scrubbing at the layer of California dust and mud on her car while Sheldon rattled something off about synthetic versus organic grease or something, she wasn't even sure what the point was. All she knew? Making him help wash her car for the year was not worth driving him to Comic Con.


End file.
